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Dutch wary of Socceroos ambush

Steve Larkin

The Netherlands are bracing for an Australian ambush despite the Socceroos losing foot soldier Mark Milligan to injury for their World Cup battle.

Milligan's hamstring strain has sidelined him from a second group match in Porto Alegre fixture on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) that is making the highly-fancied Dutch a little nervous.

As Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal batted away numerous questions about winning the World Cup in the wake of his team's defeat of champions Spain, his star midfielder Wesley Sneijder insisted Australia could prove more difficult to topple than Spain.

"It's perfectly possible," Sneijder told reporters on Tuesday.

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"We have never won against Australia. We have played them three times and we didn't win so it will be a difficult match.

"After the 5-1 victory (against Spain) everybody will have taken a light view of this. But we will not."

Australian coach Ange Postecoglou was forced into another reshuffle after Milligan reported a hamstring tightness.

Postecoglou, who declined to nominate Milligan's replacement, must also cover injured defender Ivan Franjic, who has returned home with a torn hamstring.

Despite the double blows, Postecoglou promised his rank underdogs won't adopt defensive tactics to try and stifle the rampant Dutch, led by their twin strike force of Robin van Persie and Arjen Robben who both bagged doubles against Spain.

"That is not why we came to the World Cup," Postecoglou declared on Tuesday.

"We know we'll have to be very strong defensively because the Dutch are very dangerous going forward and they proved that against Spain.

"The other side of that is, if we just try to defend for 90 minutes there is only going to be one result and that won't be in our favour.

"It's just as important that we're dangerous when we have the ball, and I think we can be."

His Dutch counterpart van Gaal believed Postecoglou wasn't bluffing.

"I do not expect Australia to have a defensive game," van Gaal told reporters.

"I also expect Australia to play an offensive game because, indeed, their national coach is basing himself on this.

"He should line up (Tim) Cahill in such a game while he is one of the unique qualities of the Australian team.

"So I do think that they will be playing a much more offensive game than anybody thinks."

Both coaches welcomed the cooler climes of Porto Alegre, with a forecast maximum temperature of 15 degrees on match day.

"With the cooler conditions you can expect a quicker tempo and maybe for the game to be a little more compact," Postecoglou said.

"We know both teams like to play attacking football. The Dutch do, and that is certainly our intent."

Captain Mile Jedinak said the Socceroos were prepared for a rapid-fire encounter, confident the jitters that cruelled Australia in their 3-1 opening loss to Chile had dissolved.

"We did address it after the game - obviously it was too late then," Jedinak said.

"But a lot of players were playing in their first World Cup, the biggest game of their careers.

"That was the unfortunate thing that happened in that game.

"But the key part in that was the response, what you saw after that first 20 minutes. And I know that will drive the boys going forward."